Literary notes about Chimerical (AI summary)
In literature, the term chimerical evokes a duality of imaginative wonder and impracticality. It is often employed to characterize ideas, schemes, or visions that, while rich in creativity, ultimately seem as insubstantial as illusions, such as grand proposals for societal reform or transcendental concepts that defy practical realization [1] [2] [3]. At times, it is similarly used to describe fantastical or hybrid creatures that bridge disparate worlds—the human and the animal—creating beings of unsettling, dream-like quality [4]. Whether remarking on lofty ambitions or critiquing speculative theories that straddle the boundary of possibility and fantasy, authors use chimerical to infuse their work with a sense of poetic yet critical tension [5] [6].
- If the search for this relation is chimerical, the two terms, mind, and the world, may be illusions.
— from The Heavenly Father: Lectures on Modern Atheism by Ernest Naville - The idea was too chimerical to be entertained, and the suggested railway was accordingly rejected as impracticable.
— from The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson Comprising Also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive by Samuel Smiles - The idea of restoring Latin to its old position of universal language is chimerical.
— from Introduction to the Study of History by Charles Seignobos - A chimerical animal, having the head and breast of a woman, and the body and legs of a bird.
— from The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth EditionBeing a Concise Description of the Several Terms Used, and Containing a Dictionary of Every Designation in the Science by Anonymous - Transmigration or an atonement may be chimerical ideas.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - A prospect which hitherto had appeared to him only as a chimerical vision was now viewed by him in the light of a reality.
— from Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora by Mayne Reid
